


If I Lose Myself Tonight

by Cup_aTea



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, First Meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 16:38:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/725494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cup_aTea/pseuds/Cup_aTea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint was the sniper assigned to put a stop to the Black Widow.  But he finds he can't just follow orders and follows her instead.</p><p>A story of how Clint and Natasha met, and how Barton brought the Black Widow in to become a part of SHIELD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I Lose Myself Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> This jumped into my head one day while I was listening to Maroon Five's "One More Night." It seemed like the perfect Clint/Natasha song.
> 
> Unbetaed and proofread only by me, so feel free to point out errors.

The blonde below him was beautifully deadly.  Right now, she was a pretty girl in a rather drab jacket, trying to negotiate with a group of thugs, but Clint could see the grace hidden in her movements.  He’d seen it on the train into the city two days ago as they passed in the car, and again later in the busy station.  The first time she’d made eye contact the look warned him away.  Then she’d proceeded to ignore his existence.

 

“Barton, report,” Agent Coulson asked in his ear.

 

“Targets are in position.”

 

Clint watched as the discussion below got heated.  The three men clearly thought they were dealing with an amateur, and the Black Widow was playing it to her advantage.

 

“Barton, take the shot.” Coulson’s voice buzzed across the comm line.  Clint shifted minutely to alleviate the feeling of a roof tile digging into his rib as he considered his options.

 

The silence on the comm was getting tense when he finally replied, “Negative, base.”

 

The reply was immediate.  “Status report.”

 

“I’m not taking the shot.”

 

“Has your position been compromised?”

 

“Negative, base.” Actually, he was pretty sure the blonde in the alley below had made him two minutes ago, but she wasn’t compensating for a hit.

 

“I need a sitrep now, Hawkeye.  What’s going on?”  Clint hadn’t heard Coulson so pissed since his first weeks of Basic three years ago.

 

“Targets are in range and situation appears normal.  But I’m starting to root for this one.”

 

“Barton—“

 

“Sir, I think we need to make a different call.”  He had already shifted his aim to the thugs in the alley, tracking them with his rifle.

 

“Specialist, take the shot and get your ass back to base,” Coulson snapped.

 

“No can do, sir.  I’m not taking the shot.”  Clint switched off his earpiece and focused on the group below.

 

The three men began closing in on the petite blonde.  She was playing nervous, but Clint knew her file and knew it was an act.  She was arguing with the three men, letting them push in closer, but Clint had no doubt she could take out all three targets at once.  He watched for some sort of signal, trying to figure out what she was waiting for.  As the disagreement played itself out, he saw what it was—she pulled a small packet from her coat and he caught the tell of the main thug as he prepared for a hand off.   He could also see the man readying to reach for his gun.  The Widow clearly did too.

 

As the man leaned forward to take the package, he opened himself up for a roundhouse kick from the Widow.  He went down immediately and one of his comrades startled.  The other—the one behind the Widow—reached for his own gun.  Clint dropped him with a bullet between the shoulders.  The Widow efficiently finished off the other two and knelt down to retrieve something from the main thug’s jacket.

 

She turned abruptly and stared up at him, holding his gaze across the empty alleyway.  And then she was up and gone, and Clint was hurrying to pack up his rifle and do the same.  He took off in the opposite direction, using drainpipes, balconies, and a dumpster to drop him off on a busy street.   He spent half an hour making sure no one was following him, then made his way back to base.

 

\---

 

“Coulson, she knew I was there.  She wanted me to take the shot.”

 

“I fail to see how that’s relevant, Specialist.” 

 

Coulson was sitting at a makeshift desk, the Black Widow’s file and blueprints of the city spread out before him.  Clint shifted from one foot to another, trying not to lose his cool.

 

“She wanted me to take the shot.  She’s ready to stop living like this.”

 

“Did she tell you as much?”

 

“No, but I know she does.”

 

“You said she made you in the train station, before either of you were positioned in the city.  Are you saying she somehow communicated to you across the crowded station that she was ready to change her life and fight alongside us?”

 

“No sir.  But if you just lo—“

 

“No, listen to me, Barton.  She’s using you.  It’s what she does.  Besides, there’s a world of difference between wanting to come in out of the cold and being suicidal.”

 

“Is there, sir?”

 

“Barton—“ Coulson said warningly.

 

“Sir, when SHEILD caught up to me, I didn’t think I’d live to see another day.  Knew I didn’t have any information worth selling, knew a group like SHIELD would have no reason to keep me.  And I was so damn tired of running that when you put that bullet in my leg, the only thing I could do was laugh.”

 

“I remember.”

 

“It’s the same damn thing, Coulson.  She’s been running and hiding a long time—she’s a helluva lot better at it than I was.  But you’ve said yourself she’s been sloppy lately, leaving behind a trail.  She’s ready to end this.”

 

“And that’s exactly what we were here to do, Agent.  Take her out and put an end opt the Black Widow.  Which is going to be next to impossible to do now, thanks to you.”

 

“Sir—“

 

“No, Barton.  I’ve heard enough for one night.  We are regrouping.  I already have agents out, trying to determine the Widow’s status.  If you’re right and she’s sticking around because she has some kind of death wish, then we will try again.  If she’s rabbited, then we’ll head back to the States, and you, Specialist, will personally be giving the Director a report on how you not only allowed the Black Widow to remain at large, you actually helped her get away.

 

“Until we know more about the situation, get out of here.  Catch some sleep, get some fresh air—I don’t care.  Just stay out of my hair until you’re needed.

 

“Sir.”  Clint nodded smartly and about-faced to the door.  He heard papers shuffle on the desk, and the click of a radio as Coulson went back to his duties.

 

“Thompson, report….”

 

\---

 

Clint pulled his leather jacket up higher as the mist tried to solidify into rain and he made his way through the streets.  He was looking for a hole-in-the-wall.  A place where he could drink and not have anyone give a shit that he was an outsider.  It took him a while, but he finally found a bar where no one cared and no one paid him attention.

 

He was most of the way through his second beer when she sat down next to him.  She was in an old grey coat and a dowdy green dress, and with her bright hair pulled back over one shoulder, she only got the attention of half the men in the bar.  She said nothing, just stared solemnly up at him with eyes that were too old for her face.  He called the barman over and ordered her a drink.  Then he pulled the comm out of his ear and set it on the bar.  The chatter of the bar rolled by in its usual rumble as they both picked up their drinks.

 

The first words he heard her speak were ordering another round of drinks.  After a third round, they began exchanging stories of their trade, which meant vague circumstances, disguised names, and trademark fighting techniques.  After a fourth round he was wondering if he’d ever see her with her clothes off, and only half-cared if he survived to tell the tale.  When he went to order a sixth, she stopped him with a hand on his arm, lay money down on the bar and pulled him away from his seat.

 

He let her lead him through the town, not caring much where they were heading.  The rain had moved on, the air was clearing.  The old stone streets wound around each other between rows of houses and eventually she stopped in front of one.  She pulled the key from her pocket to let them in.  They stopped on the third floor and she unlocked a second door, opening it to reveal a narrow, lived-in flat.  Clint had a moment to realize that he was seeing the Widow’s apartment—a space that she had hidden and that SHIELD would never find until she was done with it.  And then she was pulling him inside by the front of his jacket and he found he didn’t care. 

 

 

 

She was beautiful underneath her clothes.  He drank in the sight of her as she moved around him, over him, under him.  She touched his body, his face, his arms, appreciatively, but he knew when he was outclassed and he couldn’t hold a candle to the beautiful creature above him.  He ran a hand through her hair as she moved on top of him and he leaned in to whisper her name.

 

“Don’t.”  She slowed and pressed a finger against his lips.

 

“But—“he breathed out.

 

“No.  Not now.”  And then she pulled her hand away and rolled her hips and he didn’t try to ask any more questions.

 

 

 

It was late when Clint finally woke properly.  Sun was creeping across the bed toward him.  He blinked, and then sat up.  In the tiny kitchenette, she was leaning against the counter, watching him.  A cup was cradled in her hands and she was wearing nothing but her satin bottoms.  His shoulders relaxed as he took in the sight.  She watched him sit up before turning to top off her cup.  Then she crossed the room and climbed into his lap.  He took a sip of the hot, bitter coffee and rested a hand on her warm hip.

 

The sun had crawled another foot across the sheets before she left the bed again.  Clint watched languidly as she dressed in new clothes from the wardrobe.  She tied a scarf over her hair and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek.  The door closed behind her and he stretched on the bed.  Padding across the floor, he considered the cold coffee pot before a pulling a long drink of water.  He carried it over to the window and scanned the street below.  It was a perfectly ordinary residential block; one that SHIELD had no doubt scouted before he came on the scene.  And yet, they hadn’t found the Widow’s apartment.  She was still a master at hiding in plain sight. 

 

He had a brief twinge of conscious at the thought—Coulson was probably digging him a shallow grave as he stood there.  The fact that the flat hadn’t yet been stormed by a team meant that they hadn’t been found.  But he wasn’t ready to deal with what that meant yet.  Instead, he watched the comings and goings on the street below.  After a few minutes, a familiar scarf came into view.  It’s owner walked easily down the street, stopping at one point to talk to an elderly neighbor before stepping into the shadow of the building and out of view.  Clint’s sniper senses twitched, but he made himself relax against the sill. 

 

He was still leaning there when the door opened and she walked in, a small bag clutched in her hands.  He smiled at the look of her, with a scarf wrapped tight around her hair and a demure shade of lipstick.  Looking at her, he wondered what her neighbors would say if they knew that this ordinary-looking young woman regularly became a deadly assassin with a killer figure. 

 

He watched silently as the scarf was pulled from her hair.  The coat followed and then the dress.  She held his gaze as she shrugged it first from one shoulder, then the other.  It crumpled on the floor around her feet, and she smirked at him as she stepped out of it.  She paused in the tiny kitchen, then walked to him and pulled him back to the bed.  He let himself fall onto the tangle of blankets and watched her crawl onto it herself.  She dropped a spoon and table knife onto the sheets between them.  The bag was folded back to reveal small rounds of bread, still warm from the bakery.  Next to them she set a jar of jam, startlingly red.

 

“We’ll get crumbs in the sheets,” Clint said lazily.

 

“So?”  She leaned forward and kissed him silent.  When she pulled back, she picked up the knife and one of the breads.

 

“You crack them open like this,” she said, and she was scooting forward until she was almost in his lap.  And then she was spooning raspberry jam from the jar and feeding him bites between her fingers.

 

\---

 

The afternoon light found Clint wrapped around her back, resting his chin on her shoulder. 

 

“I should leave,” he said to no one in particular.

 

“You should never have come in the first place,” she agreed.

 

“No, but I wanted to.  I would do it again.”  He rolled up, so he could look down on her face.

 

“So you’re going to leave?”

 

“I should.”  Clint swallowed.  “I want to find a way to tell them.  To—“

 

She pressed a finger to his lips.  “No.  This was between us.  This was your one chance to meet the Black Widow and come out alive.  After this, things go back to the way they were meant to be between us.”  She pulled away from him and reached for a dressing gown lying on a chair.

 

“Natalia—“

 

“Don’t call me that.  That is what the marks call me.  That is what they call me as they parade me in front of their enemies.  That is what they call me in the middle of the night before I plunge the knife into their gut.  That name is not for you.”

 

Clint looked at her, watched her wrapping herself in the dressing gown.

 

“I should probably go.”

 

“You probably should.  They’ll be looking for you.”  She turned away from him, faced the wardrobe. He began picking up his clothes. 

 

\---

 

Clint wandered the streets, but found himself unwilling to go back to base.  He lingered at the river, trying to convince himself of what he ought to do.  He knew his obligation to SHIELD.  The organization had always been more than just a job to him.  They’d pulled him out of the underworld, promised to make him into something more than he could be on his own.  After three years, he was still learning that they appreciated more than just his aim.  Seniors agents asked his opinion when strategizing for ops; handlers like Coulson usually allowed him to pick his own perch.  He’d been given training classes to lead on the range, and lately they even started him on the basics of piloting aircraft.

 

He owed them.  Clint was smart enough to know that without SHIELD there was a good chance he wouldn’t have made it to the age of twenty-five.  And he knew that what he was doing flew in the face of his training.  But he also remembered the Widow’s expression in the alley, the way she had shown her back to him, apparently unafraid…  He couldn’t shake it.

 

 So he kept his face away from cameras, stayed on busy streets, and kept walking.  He wandered the whole afternoon until night was falling and he made his way to another small bar on the outskirts of the city.

 

He wasn’t really surprised when she showed up on the other side of the bar.  She kept her distance, watching him but not approaching, and he didn’t try to change her mind.  Instead, he stuck to his drink and tried to sink himself in the conversations at the bar.

 

Conversation led to a few games of pool, which led to a loud disagreement about how Clint managed to win so much money.  The bartender turned them out of the bar, and Clint found himself in a back alley on rainy night with a group of drunk, angry locals. He took the first hit and staggered backward.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone slip out of the bar behind them.  But then another man was moving forward, and Clint was throwing a punch and dodging another. 

 

There was a yell from the back of the crowd and then another, and then the Widow was at his side, holding him up like he was past drunk. 

 

“ _Please_ ,” she said in their native language, and then half in English, “ _please_ don’t hurt him.”

 

The men in front of them paused and rumbled among themselves.  The Widow gave him a jab in the ribs.

 

“Go,” she hissed. 

 

“No,” he grunted back.  “I’m not gonna…”

 

“Go!” she said again.  “Before the police show up.  Before your friends hear about this.  I’ll deal with them.”

 

She gave him a shove, and he went with the motion.  His feet were running, pounding on the pavement, before his brain caught up with them.  He was heading in the direction of the river, and he kept with it, not slowing until the bridge became visible through the fog.  He jogged to it and slid between two girders to ward off the mist.

 

\---

 

“Thought I’d find you here.”  The voice, with its perfect, place-less American accent made him smile even as it ached.  He turned, the rail of the bridge cold against his back.

 

She was so small.  And even knowing her strength and speed, when Clint looked at her, he could only see how vulnerable she was.  Those old eyes in that young face—the SHIELD file was incomplete, never finished—but in this light he could believe that she wasn’t even twenty.  Her frame was delicate even as she commanded muscles that could kill him in a movement.  Her eyes were haunted.  He remembered being that age.  Living job to job.  Keeping warm in doorways and beds that weren’t his own.

 

She stepped closer and reached up to hold his face.  She seemed to be able to read his expression without words because she only said, “One more night.”

 

He sighed and leaned forward until his forehead rested against her hair.  She let him rest there.  Even knowing Coulson would say he was being played, he didn’t want to pull away.

 

“Tomorrow things can go back to the way they’re meant to be, but for now—come back with me.  Just for tonight.”

 

“It’s not that simple,” Clint muttered into her hair.  Coulson stepped back into his mind’s eye, complete with a disappointed, angry frown.  He knew his obligation to SHIELD.  He also knew that one night could easily turn into two or three, or a short lifetime if she asked him often enough.

 

“Please.”  Her voice cracked and he cracked with it.

 

He straightened and looked at that face.  The fog was starting to turn into rain, leaving stray tracks across her face.  He pulled off his jacket and draped it over her.  When they turned back to the apartment that SHIELD knew nothing about, his arm was still around her shoulders.

 

\---

 

That night he asked, “Why me?” as he traced the curve of her back.

 

She stretched up to meet him as she answered, “ _Kindred.”_

 

He didn’t bother asking for an explanation, just kissed her.

 

\---

 

When Clint made it back to the safehouse, he knew Coulson was already waiting for him.  He snapped on the light in the kitchenette in the early hours of the morning and Coulson was sitting there.  His mouth was a tight, tense line, and a muscle in his jaw jumped as Clint stepped into the room.

 

Clint knew a fight when he saw one, and he was prepared to walk into this one.

 

“Sir,” he greeted his handler.

 

“Agent.  Would you like to explain where you’ve been?”

 

“Sir?”

 

“Let me clarify, Barton.  Would you like to explain, in detail, why you went off the grid for thirty-six hours in the company of the Black Widow in the middle of an op?!”

 

After three years at SHIELD, Clint had never seen Phillip Coulson so utterly angry about anything. 

 

“Because I thought there was a chance that this could be something other than a hit.  Because I wanted to do for her what somebody did for me.”

 

“Do not try and make this personal, Agent.  I brought you in because that was the _mission._   You do not go off the grid, you do not make nice with the mark, you _do not_ change the parameters of the mission, not on your own.”

 

“You already decided you weren’t going to bring her in,” Clint started, but Coulson cut in.

 

“Yes, it was decided that a top level assassin, who has systematically taken out mob bosses, terrorists, and black market traders throughout the world, who was trained by underground Russian facilities as a _child_ , was too dangerous to be brought in.  You are not the first person to have thought of this, Specialist.  There have been many meetings over the years among the senior agents.  We’ve had little enough chance in apprehending her successfully.  She has no reason to trust us if we tried to bring her in, and there are no incentives we can offer.  Moreover, we have no reason to believe that we could break her conditioning.  She’d pose a threat on every level if we let her into SHIELD,” Coulson said.

 

“That’s not true,” Clint argued.  “I told you, she’s tired of this.  She’s ready to come in; she’s ready to find a new way of living.  I saw her—I _watched_ her.  She has a bolt hole in this city, just like the other ones we’ve found, except its filled with things.  Nothing permanent, nothing to weigh her down.  But she's living comfortably, pretending, the way a child plays house.  You don’t do that when you’re a merc.  You can’t.

 

“She’s looking for a bullet from us or a bullet from someone else.  But she has skills that SHIELD could use. She’s way ahead of most of our recruits. She’s strong, she’s smart, she understands people instinctively.  She’s the kind of agent of you all wish we were,” Clint told him.

 

“Anything else you’d like to add to your assessment?” the other man asked coldly.

 

“No sir,” Clint said.

 

“Then maybe you’d like to step forward, Ms. Romanova.”

 

Clint twitched as the Black Widow stepped out of the shadows of the room behind Coulson.

 

“Is this supposed to be a show of good faith?” the senior agent asked.

 

“No.  I thought you might try to kill him.  I thought I’d offer him a way out.”

 

“Why?”

 

“He’s done this sort of thing before.  And I think we would work well together.”

 

“Again, why?”

 

This time the Widow kept her mouth shut.

 

“Did you ask him to bring you in?”

 

“No.”

 

“Did he try to convince you at any point that you should join SHIELD?”

 

“He never did.  And as long as none of you could follow us, I didn’t care what his reasons were.”

 

Coulson stared at her for a long moment and then sat back in his chair.  “Barton, leave us.”

 

“Sir—“

 

“Barton, you will leave the room, and if you make any attempt to leave the premises, you will be suspended for six months without pay and relegated to training new recruits on the range.”

 

“Yes sir.  Understood sir.”

 

Clint spent the next hour pacing in the room on the other side of the door, trying to ignore the hushed conversation.  Finally, it went quiet and the door opened.  Coulson led the Black Widow into the main room, her hands cuffed before her.  Clint couldn’t read either of their expressions, but the Widow followed docilely and Coulson’s face had lost a few lines. 

 

“The Black Widow will be returning with us to New York.  We leave in ten minutes—as soon as the techs are done.  And on the way, you will give me a _full_ debrief on the last two days, and I will decide whether or not to hand you over to Fury in a sack.”

 

Clint nodded, not trusting himself to answer.

 

“And Barton?”

 

Clint looked at the senior agent.

 

“Don’t ever pull a stunt like this again.”

 

 

\---

 

 

The first thing the Natasha Romanov did after gaining full probationary status was dye her hair.  It was nearly eight months after Coulson and Barton had brought her to the United States.  She sent Clint into the city with the name and number of the color she wanted and told him not to come back until he found it.  He returned a few hours later with his bounty and dropped it in the middle of her new SHIELD quarters.  The dull thunk echoed around the bare room.

 

“Found it,” Clint said unnecessarily.

 

Natasha hmmmed as she poked at the bag.

 

“That’s a bright color,” Clint said, watching her face.  “Could almost call it scarlet.”

 

Natasha hmmmed again, then shrugged in a casual way.  “Time for a change.”

 

Clint watched her open the box and decided to ask.

 

“Need a hand?”

 

Natasha eyed him lazily over her shoulder as she headed for the tiny washroom.

 

“Sure.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story also has a short playlist. The title is from the last.
> 
> One More Night, Maroon Five  
> Misery Business, Paramore  
> I Get Around, Dragonette  
> Lex, Ratatat  
> If I lose Myself Tonight, One Republic


End file.
